


The War Is Over

by loopyhoopyfrood



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 07:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11397915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loopyhoopyfrood/pseuds/loopyhoopyfrood
Summary: A brief snapshot of a post-war Jack.





	The War Is Over

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a break from a fic that I've stared at so much I completely hate it, so I wrote this last night. Completely pointless and plotless, but I love writing Jack, so here you go. And I know it's not obvious, but yes, the girl is Phryne.

The year is 1918, and the war is over. Jack’s played his part, although no one there will ever know, and it’s time for him to return home. He drinks in the sight of his fellow soldiers, their spirits high as they dance their way towards the boats waiting to ferry them home, and he thinks about what awaits him upon his own return. A garden by now undoubtedly long overgrown, resting in the shade of a house lovely tended by a woman he’s no longer sure he has it in him to love. Jack watches the soldiers prepare to return home, and he turns away.

The bar he finds himself in is dim and full of smoke, and he’s glad of the anonymity it offers him as he sinks down at an empty table. He turns his glass in trembling fingers, listening to the clink of the ice cubes colliding as the sounds of low conversation and an out of tune piano wash over him. He’s not sure what he’s doing here except prolonging his inevitable return.

He looks up when the group enters, their raucous laughter jarring with the melancholy atmosphere the establishment cultivates. More soldiers, each with a girl on his arm, shouting out their orders to the tired barman before they’ve even claimed their seats. They’re celebrating, caught up in the revelry the announcement of an end has brought. Jack envies them.

He turns his attention back to his untouched drink. Maybe he lingered a little too long, maybe it’s just a coincidence of timing, but as he does so his gaze meets the eyes of a dark-haired girl who lingers at the back of the group. Their connection only lasts a second, but it’s long enough for him to recognise the weariness in her eyes that tells him he’s not the only one in the room who can’t find it in themselves to celebrate.

When he next glances up she’s seated, perched on the lap of one of the uniformed men as he ignores her to down his beer and laugh with his fellow soldiers. His arm around her waist screams of possession rather than affection, and he never looks at her long enough to notice that her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Jack notices, and when she catches his eye for a second time he doesn’t look away. Instead, he raises his glass. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t move from her place on her companion’s lap, but her eyes soften as she joins his silent toast from across the room. For a moment both their glasses are lifted as they each recognise another who can’t so easily escape the horrors of all they’ve seen.

As Jack makes to tilt back his glass he blinks, and in that half a second that his eyes are closed he finds himself thinking of his wife. The guilt strikes him out of nowhere, and he opens his eyes to find his hands are shaking. The guilt isn’t born from lust, but from the sudden realisation that the stranger across the bar somehow knows him more thoroughly than the woman waiting for him back home ever will again.

Tearing his eyes away from the stranger he downs his drink, placing the empty glass back on its coaster as the liquid burns his throat. Although he avoids her gaze the entire way to the door, a cold shiver runs down his back as he imagines he can feel her eyes following him as he crosses the room.

He doesn’t turn around to check.


End file.
